The dispensing of liquid chemical products from one or more chemical receptacles is a common requirement of many industries, such as the laundry, textile, ware wash, healthcare instruments, and food processing industries. For example, in an industrial laundry facility or washing facility, one of several operating washing machines will require, from time to time, aqueous solutions containing quantities of alkaloid, detergent, bleach, starch, softener, and/or sour. Increasingly, such industries have turned to automated methods and systems for dispensing chemical products. Such automated methods and systems provide increased control of product use and reduce human contact with potentially hazardous chemicals.
Contemporary automatic chemical dispensing systems used in the commercial washing industry typically rely on pumps to deliver liquid chemical products from bulk storage containers. Generally, these pumps deliver raw product to a washing machine via a flush manifold, where the product is mixed with a diluent, such as water, that delivers the chemical product to the machine.
A typical chemical dispensing system used to supply a washing machine will include a system controller that is coupled to one or more peristaltic pumps in a pump-stand by a plurality of dedicated signal lines. The system controller will also typically be coupled to a washing machine interface by another plurality of dedicated signal lines, so that the system controller is provided with signals indicating the operational state of the machine. In operation, the machine interface transforms high voltage trigger signals generated by the washing machine into lower voltage signals suitable for the system controller, and transmits these low voltage trigger signals to the system controller over the set of dedicated signal lines, which are typically in the form of a multi-conductor cable. In response to these individual trigger signals, the controller will individually activate one or more of the pump-stands over another set of dedicated lines so that the pumps dispense a desired amount of a chemical product into the flush line. The chemicals are then mixed with a diluent before being delivered to the machine.
In contemporary automatic chemical dispensing systems, a user must physically access each system controller in order to retrieve reports, usage profiles, or any other system data. Likewise, the user must physically access each system controller in order to upload new system settings into the system controller. For example, if a user wishes to download a report or upload a new chemical usage formula, the user must insert one end of a data cable (e.g. a USB cable) into the system controller and the other end of the data cable into a computer to connect the two. Thereafter, the user may download the report or upload the new formula from a computer via the wired connection to the individual system controller. This represents an enormous time investment when a user or system administrator wishes to download a report or upload a formula, as the user must physically interact with each system controller for every washing machine in a facility.
Thus, improved systems, methods, and computer program products for providing a wireless interface to a chemical dispensing system are needed to streamline the transmitting of data between a user and any given washing machine or set of washing machines in a facility.